BRAINTREE - The birthplace of father-son presidents John Adams and John Quincy Adams will give the South Shore an early start on Fourth of July festivities again this year, with Saturday’s 41st Independence Day parade and activities.

“We like to think of our celebration as kicking off the celebrations for the area,” council vice president and event chairman Sean Powers said.

Thousands are expected for the afternoon and evening events, which Powers said will be much the same as in recent years – the “Stars And Stripes Parade” at 11:45 a.m., a fair starting at 2 p.m. and fireworks at 10.

Those events will be at Braintree High School. Before the fireworks, local Iraq and Afghanistan veterans will get a salute of their own. Post-parade activities will include live music, rides and amusements for youngsters, a monster truck show with rides, and chainsaw sculpture demonstrations.

This year’s parade will step off at the Hollis School at 482 Washington St., proceed south down Washington Street to South Braintree Square, take a short right turn on Washington, then a right turn onto Franklin Street past Sunset Lake, to the parade's end at the Braintree High access road.

Powers noted that the parade will stop there and not go onto the high school grounds, as in years past.

This year’s grand marshals will be two of the town’s championship teams – the state champ girls’ basketball team, and the New England champ varsity dance team.

Braintree held a variety of Fourth of July events before the parades began in 1972. In the early years the parades were also on the Fourth, as they are now in most communities. Powers said the town and the private, nonprofit Braintree July 4th Committee settled on the Saturday before the holiday about 20 years ago.

“It works out great for us,” he said. “Folks are still around and haven’t left for vacations yet.”

The 1973 parade featured former U.S. House Speaker John McCormack as grand marshal, along with an evening parachute jump by a Green Beret unit from Fort Devens. Traffic concerns led officials to cancel the 1984 parade – which makes this year’s the almost-annual 41st. But the parade came back strong in 1985, with Braintree resident and recently freed airplane hostage Dorothe Tressler as the featured guest.

Financial struggles plagued the parades into the early 1990s, but Powers says the festivities are on solid footing now.

This year’s event has a total budget of $80,000, with $35,000 from the town and the balance from the committee’s fundraising. As of last week Powers said the committee had raised two-thirds of its $45,000 share.

“They always come through,” he said business and community sponsors and individual donors. “They haven’t let us down yet.”

Page 2 of 2 - Lane Lambert may be reached at llambert@ledger.com or follow him on Twitter @LLambert_Ledger.